Bring Your Own Beverage

No, not that kind of beverage! By “Bring Your Own Beverage”, I mean water, coffee or tea. In the car. To work or when you go shopping.

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*Updated January 2017

Have you ever tallied up how much you spend a year on that quick cup of coffee you pick up on the way to work?

Calculate how much you spend

Since I don’t buy coffee very often, to get an idea of how much it would cost, I used this link to a website that has fast food prices.

This site tells me that just one cup from Dunkin’ Donuts is at least $1.97.

Now multiply that by 5 days a week.

Four weeks a month.

50 weeks a year, assuming you take 2 weeks vacation.

Rounded off at $2/cup, that’s $500 a year spent on coffee. And that’s at the low end of the spectrum! (and who can stop for coffee and not get a donut. Or two.)

The alternative? Bring your own beverage!

Instead, you can bring coffee you make at home in a nice big insulated, dishwasher safe “go” cup like the one pictured. (the Copco Insulated Travel Mug.) I have a couple of them just in case one is in the dishwasher. My coffee stayed at the perfect drinking temperature for my entire 90 minute commute to work – even in the winter. The lid is designed so there is no splashing or dripping, and it fits tight on the cup so it won’t open up unexpectedly.

And to make that delicious coffee? I use a Bunn coffee brewer with a thermal metal carafe. Once I pour the water into the brewer, I have 10 cups of coffee ready in under 3 minutes. The brewer is fast!

Now, think about what you could do with that $500 you are going to save!

Bottled Water

Do you buy bottled water?

The only time I every buy bottled water is when I am at the airport. And even then I save the plastic bottle and refill it while I am at my destination, and use it right up to the TSA checkpoint where I have to toss it. For me, it’s not the cost alone, but the actual concept of buying. water.

So everywhere I go, my trusty stainless steel water bottle goes with me. Well, except for the airport. The top is large enough to fit ice cubes into, so my water stays cold for hours. And I put a foam bottle cover on it to help insulate it too. The cover has a clip, which is handy for clipping it to a belt loop on my jeans if I am out doing photography or at the flea market.

If you are looking for some nice stainless bottles, Amazon has some good ones. These come in a bunch of cool colours too!

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Donna Berlanda is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and affiliated sites.